CARBON POLLUTION REDUCTION SCHEME LEGISLATION (CPRS)

While the government frames climate change as a blunt choice between action and inaction, even they acknowledge as they negotiate with the Opposition that there is a point when action becomes so weak that it is useless. The Greens and many others believe it has been passed long ago.

If the CPRS were merely too weak, the Greens might have supported it as a start. But we recognise that, when faced with a serious and complex problem, it is the choice of the right action that is vital, not the decision to act. Prescribing and locking in the wrong treatment to a seriously ill patient can hasten death rather than prevent it.

The Greens oppose the CPRS as it stands not because it is too weak but because it will actually point Australia in the wrong direction with no prospect of turning it around in the 2015 timeframe within which emissions must peak. This is why we say it is not just a failure, but it locks in failure